Did Snape see Regulus Wa: Readng the Runes: Literary Patterns in the Potterverse

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 166427

"Unspeakable" <cassyvablatsky> wrote:

<huge snip of most of the post>

> 10. 
 Harry learns something new about Snape; information on this
enigmatic Professor has been tantalizingly drip-fed through the 
series: <snip> `someone' originally betrayed the Prophecy to 
Voldemort (`My – our – one stroke of good fortune was that the 
eavesdropper was detected only a short way into the prophecy and 
thrown from the building.' OOtP37), we learned that this *was* Snape
in HBP25; unfortunately, 'someone' also murdered Regulus Black (`No,
he was murdered by Voldemort. Or on Voldemort's orders, more likely; 
I doubt Regulus was ever important enough to be killed by Voldemort 
in person.' OotP6). On this basis, I think there is a good chance 
that Snape might have performed the murder, under duress; after all,
JKR has hinted that as a Death Eater, he would have seen & done some
terrible things 
 <snip>

Carol responds:
My apologies for snipping almost the whole of this interesting and
thought-provoking post. May I suggest that you present some of your
ideas individually, which would make it less of a burden on your
fellow posters to think about and respond to them? I wish I had time
to go back and examine the structure of the individual books and
follow up on these parallels. As it is, I'm confining my comments to
portions of the paragraph on Snape.

You're absolutely right that "information on this enigmatic Professor
has been tantalizingly drip-fed through the series," and
"tantalizingly" is exactly the right adverb--anyone familiar with the
myth of Tantalus knows that to tantalize is to torment by offering
glimpses of the things we crave only to have them snatched from our
grasp. And many of us crave Snape snippets as Tantalus craved fruit
and water.

However, I disagree with your deduction that young Snape, himself only
twenty or so at the time, would have been assigned to murder Regulus.
Surely, that job would go to a cold-hearted killer like Dolohov, who
murdered the Prewetts, or Travers (there's an Azkaban escapee we
haven't seen yet!), who murdered the McKinnons. The idea that Snape
has actually committed murder before he AKs Dumbledore is inconsistent
with Bellatrix's sneering remark that he consistently "slithers out of
action" and with his own mental anguish (if we DDM!Snapers are correct
in our interpretation) as he looks into Dumbledore's eyes before he
raises his wand and again when Harry shouts, "Kill me like you killed
him, you coward!"

Nor does JKR say in the interview you mention that Snape has "seen
*and done* some terrible things" as a Death Eater. The question she's
answering is whether he can see Thestrals, meaning whether he's seen
someone die, and the answer is yes. She notes first that as an "older
person" (adult), it would be very unlikely that he had not seen death
because most of us "lose people and understand what death is." And
then she adds tantalizingly (love that word), "But you must not forget
that Snape was a Death Eater. He will have seen things that . . . ."
(Note that she breaks off here for fear of revealing too much about
Snape. And "lose people" implies that Snape has not just witnessed a
death but lost someone he cares about.)

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2004/0804-ebf.htm

The important point, however, is that JKR does not say "will have
done" but "will have seen." And it seems to me very likely that one of
the things young Snape saw as a Death Eater (in connection with his
ability to see Thestrals) was the murder of Regulus Black "some
fifteen years" before the date that Harry saw Regulus's name on the
Black family tree (OoP Am. ed. 112)--IOW, around the time of Harry's
birth, just at the point when young Snape might have received his
first inkling of how Voldemort interpreted the Prophecy.

It's very likely that Severus knew Regulus at Hogwarts. They were only
two years apart (Regulus was born in 1961, according to the Black
Family Tree at the Lexicon, and Severus was probably born in January
1959--yes, I'm aware of the available evidence and the reasons for
disputing that year of birth) and in the same house. Quite possibly,
Regulus, who presumably did not get along with his brother, Sirius,
would have been friends of some sort with Sirius's enemy, especially
given Severus's talents with invented spells and so forth. It seems
likely to me that their relationship (Sevvy's and Reggie's) was
similar to that of Cedric and Harry, the two Hogwarts TWT champions,
who were several years apart but on friendly terms most of the time,
only somewhat closer (like Harry and the Weasley Twins) because they
were in the same house and less competitive. 

In this connection, I think that Snape's reaction to Harry's memory of
Cedric's death in the Occlumency lessons is relevant:

" . . . Cedric Diggory was lying on the ground with blank eyes staring
at him . . . .

"'NOOOOOOOO!'

<snip>

"'Get up!' said Snape sharply. "'Get up! You are not trying, you are
making no effort, you are handing me weapons! <snip> I told you to
empty yourself of emotion!'

"'Yeah? Well, I'm finding that hard at the moment,' Harry snarled.

"'Then you will find yourself easy for the Dark Lord!' said snape
savagely. 'Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who
cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow
themselves to be provoked this easily--weak people, in other
words--they stand no chance against his powers! He will penetrate your
mind with absurd ease, Potter!'" OoP Am. ed. 536, ellipses in original).

Is Snape speaking here from personal experience? Was his reaction to
Regulus's death something like Harry's reaction to Cedric's, and did
the Dark Lord "penetrate his mind with absurd ease," prompting him to
learn and master Occlumency in self-defense? Did the emotions he felt
because of Regulus's death, the sadness and the horror of that murder,
help to prompt young Snape's change of heart and his (re)turn to
Dumbledore? I think it very likely, much more likely than his
committing the murder himself. Maybe the understanding of death gained
by witnessing Regulus' murder caused him to understand what Voldemort
intended to do to the Potters or Longbottoms. (I don't think LV's
plans were fully developed yet, however, or it wouldn't have taken him
fifteen months to go after them.)

But to return to the interview quotation--Not what Snape *did* as a
Death Eater but what he *saw*--and felt. That, IMO, is what's
important--what young Snape felt when he witnessed the DEs killing
people he knew. Regulus's death must have made the threat to the
Potters (and Longbottoms) more real in young Snape's mind. It made
death real to him as Cedric's makes it real to Harry. And it's part,
perhaps, of what Dumbledore was concealing from Harry--and JKR from
us. At least, I think it's worth considering the connections between
the death of someone young Snape must have known and his remorse for
revealing the Prophecy to Voldemort.

Carol, wondering if the murder of Regulus was another of the memories
that Snape placed in the Pensieve, along with his so-called worst memory